Information handling systems are increasingly utilized as a central control unit for multimedia devices. Typical multimedia devices include media players such as audio amplifiers, receivers, videocassette recorders (VCRs), compact disc (CD) players, digital versatile disc (DVD) players, audio equalizers, audio and video processing systems, etc. Since multimedia devices are manufactured by a variety of manufacturers, many features offered by the manufacturer of one type of media device are not included with the same type of device from a different manufacturer. Further, the same manufacturer of multiple models of the same type of media device does not always provide the same features and functions for all of those devices. Therefore, only a common denominator of functions exists in each of a single type of media device. For example, the common denominator for VCR devices includes the “play”, “stop”, “pause”, “fast forward” and “rewind” functions. Other functions may or may not exist on any particular media device.
Existing user interfaces for managing multimedia devices with an information handling system are forced into only providing the common denominator functions for a given category of devices. As a result, these user interfaces cannot exploit the rich variety of features and functions included with many of the latest models of media devices, thereby limiting the usefulness of managing the multimedia devices with an information handling system. Thus, there lies a need for a user interface which is capable of providing control of all, or nearly all, of the available functions of multimedia devices beyond the common denominator functions of the category of media devices.